


The Weakest Link

by serenadinsirens



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Timelines, M/M, Prompt Fill, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 04:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2608538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenadinsirens/pseuds/serenadinsirens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off the prompt "Grif gives up his life so that SImmons can live"</p><p>Dexter Grif did not believe in Social Darwinism, but in war, there was no 'social'. There was only survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weakest Link

**Author's Note:**

> I was doing prompts on tumblr, and this one came up. They were typically only supposed to be under 500 words, but this one ended up being over a thousand.
> 
> Just so you know, there's no explicit death scene. Only mentions and ambiguous endings.

"Simmons is going to die."

The sentence sat in the open air and hung over Grif’s head, like he was waiting for someone to finish it off with a ‘haha  _sike_ ' or 'of being a fucking  _nerd_ ’, regardless of whether or not he was the one who said it out loud, and that there was no underlying joke with a punchline waiting to be sprung. That was the end-all be-all. Simmons was going to die.

Grif vaguely wonders if he’s supposed to feel something other than empty; like he was hung open and turned inside-out for the world to see, but numb all the same, like the product of some medical procedure. It left him breathless, but like, not in some sort of flowery, poetic way that Donut would put it in his pink bound diary that he keeps under his pillow.

Breathless like someone is standing on his exposed lungs and screaming at him to just fucking  _breathe_ , it’s not that hard!

It  _was_ hard and Dexter Grif just didn’t know how to get his respiratory system to start working again.

It probably had given up along with the rest of his body during training.

Grif blames the smoking.

Also, the fact that his best friend and love of his life slash soulmate possibly was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Okay," Grif thinks he says but he’s not quite sure at this point since he’s long stopped being able to discern the difference between his own voice from the noise around him; the ticking of the clock in the make-shift infirmary and labored breathing of the rest of his team sounding almost identical to his usually lax tone.

"Weeeeell, not  _exactly_ ,” Donut chimes and the way his voice lingers for a beat too long reminds Grif why he fucking  _hates_ the rest of his team.

"What the fuck do you mean ‘not exactly’? You guys JUST said, and I quote, ‘so, Simmons got caught in one of those mine fields out there and has been so completely mutilated that his body is almost indistinguishable by now. Anyways, do you know his policy on organ donation? His driver’s license was absolutely destroyed with the heat of the TERRIBLE EXPLOSION so we don’t know and though you would’. That was your full statement, word for word," Grif was almost seething at the static expressions his so-called friends were wearing at this point in time.

"Well it’s funny you should mention organ donations, becaaause-"

"Because we need to tear your morbidly obese body back on open and rip out those organs Simmons gave you all those years ago!" Sarge cried and characteristically cocked his shotgun and aimed it at Grif, like he was going to fucking attack him for making such a suggestion or something. "Somethin’ I’ve been waiting to do for fifteen long years."

"Wait, hold on," Grif tried for a second, doing his best to work out the situation without being shot (which, honestly, would be a goddamn stupid idea for Sarge to do if he really wanted his organs), "how is that going to work? Aren’t Simmons’ nerd-parts or whatever only programmed to work for him?"

"Technically, yes!" Donut said in a way that sounded a lot like he was sidestepping around-

"We want you to die in Simmons’ place, numbnuts." And there it was. The underlying idea that Grif just couldn’t shake out of his head, that he knew would come up sooner or later.

Dexter Grif was by no means a believer of Social Darwinism, but in war, as he’d come to learn, there was no real ‘social’. There was only survival, and only the fittest (Agent Washington) or the biggest cowards (the simulation troopers) survive. And in a team composed entirely out of weak links, it became an honest process of elimination for who was the most expendable of all of the fragile, deteriorating links, or they could easily draw straws. Or vote that bitch off the island Survivor style.

It all made fucking sense. Sarge was the leader, and he was the most capable, and he knew how to build robots and fix vehicles and actually fucking fight. There was no way that he’d be in the running. Simmons, as well, was the thinker, and he understood and oversaw plans and strategy, another keeper. So what did it come down to? Dexter Grif and Franklin Delano Donut.

And one of those people Sarge despised with every inch of his existing body.

So much so that he would jump at every possibility that could potentially end in their demise.

Here’s a hint: that person was Grif.

Fucking peachy.

"Ah," was all Grif said as it was all that Grif had to say to that realization. 

"Well, you see, we reasoned that since they were _technically_ Simmons’ organs in the first place, so you were the best candidate for the donation," and Donut’s excuse in no way shape or form made anything better, or did any good to disguise the fact that he was going to die for this cause, but Grif let it slide for now.

"Yeah, yeah I do see," Grif stated and turned to look at Sarge straight in the barrel of his shotgun, "so, what, is that it? Is that the end of this all?"

"Abso-tutely," Sarge validated without lowering his gun, "you gonna come slowly, dirtbag, or am I gonna have to wrestle with ya?" he gave a very characteristic chuckle before continuing. "Please say fight, it’ll be more fun for me."

"Sarge, in what universe did you expect me to fight?" Grif had to question, seeing eye to eye with the two barrels. "And you can lose the fuckin’ gun, if it so pleases you."

Sarge didn’t abide by his subordinate’s statement, but that didn’t surprise Dexter Grif at all.

And it all made fucking sense. Every last bit of it, down to the last detail; Grif was going to die to save Simmons’ life, and he couldn’t honestly give less of a shit about it, much like how he’d lived the rest of his life.

Simmons was just better fit for survival, in all aspects. He knew how to take care of his body, and he knew how to take care of his team, and he knew how to carry on without hiding in the shadows or pretending he knew what he was doing. Dick Simmons, unlike anyone else on his team, actually _knew_ what he was doing.

And Grif ached to be with him, to talk this through with him, to tell him good bye and that he was going to miss him more than he’d missed anything else in his years. 

But Dick Simmons was dying in the other room, and unconscious people just couldn’t talk. If he could, though, Simmons would probably scream at him to not do it. He’d probably beg him to stop and think things through. He’d probably hate him when Grif wouldn’t listen.

But Simmons already hated him, and if he could talk or make any sort of recognition of the world around him then they wouldn’t even be in this position in the first place.

He’d also probably kill him, and Grif would muse that it was pretty goddamn counter productive to kill him for going to die for him. And then he’d fuckin’ haunt his ass.

His heart stopped when he realized it was hypothetical anymore. 

He really did hope he could haunt Simmons in the afterlife.

And he hopes that he’d hold no regret.

And beneath it all, he really just wishes that he could hold him.

But it had all been decided.

"Alright then, I guess you guys aren’t going to give me much of a choice, anyways," Grif says and he wonders if his voice was shaking, and also vaguely muses that typically they would be given a last meal, or something, right? Whatever, desperate times. At least the last thing he ate was oreos. Fucking delicious. 

"Let’s just get this over with."

The door shuts behind him, and he realizes that would be the last the world would see of Dexter Grif.

At least Simmons would see it for him.


End file.
